No executions carried out in Japan in 2011

Japan has not carried out any executions in 2011, the first year in nearly two decades that a death-row inmate has not been hung.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

3:49PM GMT 29 Dec 2011

By tradition, executions are not carried out over the New Year period, as well as on weekends or national holidays, so the last execution was as far back as July 2010.

Japanese courts are not refraining from handing down death sentences, however, and 129 people waiting for their sentences to be carried out, the highest number since 1949, according to Kyodo News.

In one of the most recent cases, Japan's Supreme Court in November confirmed the death sentence for Seiichi Endo, 51, a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult who was convicted of involvement in the release of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 as part of a plot to overthrow the government.

Along with the United States, Japan is the only major industrialised democracy to retain the death penalty, despite pressure from human rights groups and governments in Europe.

There has been increased debate about execution of prisoners in Japan since the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009, supported by human rights groups.

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Amnesty International began a campaign immediately after the DPJ was elected to encourage Japan to scrap the death penalty, claiming in a 72-page report that Japan's "secretive capital punishment system" – often over decades on death row – causes prisoners to suffer mental health problems. The report also raises questions about forced confessions and doubtful convictions.

Despite those concerns, the Japanese public remains broadly in favour of the death penalty – a recent survey put the support rate at 81 per cent – and petitions have arranged by relatives of victims of particularly gruesome crimes that quickly attract tens of thousands of signatures.